FUTURE QUEST BOOK 2: KIDS & PETS & SUPER FRIENDS
by Romantic Twist
Summary: A Sequel to Future Quest: The Kids and the Kentron Factor. Dr Zin and Lex Luthor use advanced technology to prevent the existence of many of earth's super heroes.
1. The Reality Renovator

_1969…_

By now the existence of the new super team known as The Kentron Contingency was well known around the world. Its members included the following super heroes: Mini Lad alias Chuck had acquired the power to shrink while wearing one half of an alien ring from Galaxia Kentron. His sister Nancy alias Enlarging Girl had acquired the power to grow to giant size while wearing the other half of the ring. Young Samson and his dog Goliath used Kentron originated bracelets to gain super powerful forms of adult Samson and a super lion. Tod the Dino Boy had inherited the long lost power club which had once been granted by the first Kentron visitors to the first Mightor, and now carried on the Mightor legacy himself. Jan had left the Space Ghost team to remain on earth and use her inviso-belt and rocket pack as a member of The Kentron Contingency. Honorary members Tom and Tub had a super whale friend named Moby Dick, who would also aid the team.

Jan let the team know that she was going to be away from earth on one of her periodic return visits to Ghost Planet to see Space Ghost and Jace and Blip, as the Herculoids had invited them all to Amzot for Dorno's birthday party.

The Kentron Contingency were not agents of Intelligence One, but maintained a close friendship with Benton Quest and Race Bannon, and would sometimes help them on request.

This new allegiance had been observed, by means of a spider-like robotic probe, which was sent by Benton Quest's arch nemesis Doctor Zin. The evil scientist knew that, with so many super heroes now teamed up and willing to assist Doctor Quest and indirectly I-1, there was little chance that his robot spiders would be of any use to him. Samson, Enlarger Girl, Moby Dick and Mightor were each strong enough to smash a robot spider to pieces.

So instead, Zin sent his robot spider probes out on a search for a powerful ally or allies of his own. Deep in a swamp, one robot spider noticed the completion of construction and flight test of a somewhat dome shaped flying building. Zin immediately flew a small plane out to accompany his robot spiders, calling several of them to the swamp, and paid the owner of the flying dome a visit, introduced himself, and explained his problem with I-1 and the Kentron Contingency.

"I am Lex Luthor," said the other scientist, "And I built this headquarters to recruit super allies of my own, because I'm also having trouble with Superman and his Justice League of America. You could be the first one to join me. I need a scientist to help me perfect this Hall of Doom's time conveyor. So far I can't get it to take me out of this time, only to fly the place around in the present."

Zin studied the schematic diagrams, the Hall of Doom's computer records, and the building itself, and went to work on the time conveyor.

"Running away to another time doesn't really help us," said Zin, "If we go into the past, we have to forsake the modern conveniences. If we go into the future, there might be even more super heroes to deal with by the time we arrive."

"Don't you see?" said Luthor, "We'll go a short time into the past, just as many years as we need to go, to alter the early lives of these super heroes, so that the ordinairy human beings never gain those super powers. Then we'll have the advantage with our scientific devices. This headquarters, staffed by your robot spiders, would be unstoppable."

"Well I don't know if I've gotten the bugs out of it enough to go back that far," said Zin, "But it should take us somewhere if we give it a test."

Luthor activated the time conveyor, and studied the monitor. They saw the familiar 20th Century swampland outside replaced by the most curious pattern of odd scenery. Then Luthor studied the readings on the instrument panel, and could only make one conclusion.

"According to the instruments, we haven't moved in time at all, and yet we've definitely gone somewhere else. It can only be another dimension," said Luthor.

"Then how about we go out and meet the natives," said Zin.

The people of this dimension looked human in appearance, like Caucasian Americans, but shorter, around the size of the pygmies that Race Bannon and Jonny Quest had once tricked by disguising Race with purple berry juice.

"I wish I could understand why this dimension looks so weird," said Luthor, "Its appearance seems to defy all the laws of physics."

"That's because we maintain its appearance by using the Reality Renovator in the Science Museum," said one of the populace.

"Does it allow for a cycle of nights and days here, like the 24 hour periods where we come from?" asked Zin.

"Yes," said the little man.

Luthor and Zin returned to the Hall of Doom and waited until nightfall. Then, on Luthor's recommendation, Zin sent two of his robot spiders out to locate and break into the Science Museum, steal the Reality Renovator and return to the Hall of Doom with it. Then they reversed the controls of the faulty time conveyor, and returned to the swamp on earth.

"I still don't know how we're going to use this," said Luthor, "The Justice League and the Kentron Contingency can still beat us, no matter what we make the scenery of earth look like."

"We're not going to use it on the scenery," said Zin, "When you asked me to steal it, you knew it was powerful, and I agreed because I've got the answer to our dilemma. It's called a Reality Renovator for a reason. My own problems have largely been with Intelligence One in the past, and specifically with Benton Quest and Race Bannon. The two least threatening members of their team are Jonny Quest and his dog Bandit, not to mention Hadji. So we're going to use the Reality Renovator to replace all of earths super heroes with harmless teams of kids and pets."


	2. New Kids on the Clock

The device took some time to do what they wanted, but over the next few years, all of the members of the Kentron Contingency simply vanished without a trace. This time Intelligence One were not willing to launch search and rescue missions. Last time, they'd been aided by super heroes to find missing kids. This time the super heroes themselves had been taken by something that would therefore make short work of I-1. Intelligence One decided to operate covertly until some time in the mid 1980s, when they'd observed enough developments to see if action could be taken. With her team gone, and her romance with Chuck now impossible, Jan remained with Space Ghost, and eventually met a boy from a team of space based teenage super heroes (The Teen Force) called Kid Comet. Although they would not start dating until 1981.

All around America, groups of kids, usually with pets, were taking on the world's criminals, somehow finding the means to unmask and defeat them. The Reality Renovator saw several such groups come into existence, none of which were considered to pose any threat to Luthor and Zin:

Mysteries Inc (composed of four kids and a dog called Scooby-Doo, who spent most of their time running or eating or debunking false ghosts).

Josie and the Pussycats (several kids and a cat).

Goober and the Ghost Chasers (several kids and a dog).

Skip, Augie and April and their dog Elmo (who also made the mistake of teaming up with ghosts).

Tinker, Debbie and Mark (and a talking car named Speed Buggy).

Lori, Gater and Lori's tiny uncle Inch High Private Eye, who worked for the Finkerton Detective Agency with the help of their dog Braveheart.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, who actually didn't seem to have a pet.

Sue Corwin and her friends, who were preparing to take a flight to explore an uncharted island by the year 1977, but were now in the early stages of constructing a powerful robot named Pops. The Pops project would occupy them for the next few years.

"Now all that remains is to use the Reality Renovator to phase out the newly formed Superfriends, and we'll start with my biggest headache, namely Superman," said Luthor.

"Oh no you won't!" said a purple and orange costumed pygmy sized man who suddenly popped into view and snapped his fingers.

With that, the Reality Renovator shrank to tiny size and appeared on the little man's shoulder.

"Who are you?"

"I'm from the 5th dimension, the place from whence you stole this device four years ago," said the man, "My name is pronounced Mxyzptlk. I could have come here and taken this thing back years ago. I was happy to let you phase those boring Kentron Contingency characters out of existence, but nobody takes away my fun of confounding Superman. Why in a few years, I might start on his Super Friends for a new novelty. So you're not replacing them with powerless teenagers and a dog. I could have used my own advanced scientific powers to take out the Kentron Contingency, but the only trouble is that the effects of whatever I do are gone when I go. So I let you two steal the Reality Renovator just long enough to do it yourselves. From what I've observed, Mini Lad's and Enlarger Girl's ring halves had absorbed enough dimension traversing energy to just possibly have the power to force me home without getting me to say my name backwards. So I let you take them out of existence with the machine."

"So what are you going to do?" asked Zin.

"I'm going to say my name backwards, which will take me home to the 5th dimensional world of Zrrf, and take back our Reality Renovator with me. For once I'll be a hero there. So I'll go willingly. Superman won't even have to trick me into saying Kltpzyxm."

With the mention of that word, the sounds of the syllables opened the unique dimensional doorway which applied only to the owner of the name (a peculiar property of Zrrf inhabitants) and sucked Mxyzptlk back into his home dimension.

"We were so close!" said Luthor, "Now we'll have to get the time conveyor working and avert the existence of the Superfriends like I originally planned."

"You'll have to do it alone," said Zin, "My arch enemies' super allies are all gone now, and the Super Friends don't have anything about me on their records. Their government liason Colonel Wilcox is not privy to Intelligence One's files on me. I'm not risking exposure and capture by the Super Friends made more likely by helping you. I'll take my robot spiders and leave."

So like I-1, Zin went into hiding and would not clash with Quest Team again until 1986.

Luthor needed another scientific mind to assist him in perfecting the time conveyor. He managed to contact an alien computer android who had briefly teamed up with him in 1967 and 1968: Brainiac. Together they got the time conveyor working and, by 1973, they had recruited two more members to help them deal with the Super Friends. Both were known arch enemies of the second most powerful core member of the Super Friends (Wonder Woman): Cheetah and Giganta.

"We're going to start by doing a test run into the past and altering the origins of the teenage sidekicks of the Justice Leaguers," said Luthor, "except for Robin, who doesn't worry me in the least. With most of the Teen Titans gone, the Justice Leaguers will have to spend a lot of time training ordinairy powerless teenagers to be sidekicks, while we build our team. By 1978, I think we'll be ready to take on the Justice Leaguers ourselves."

"I got my power from a chemical dust with enlarging properties, which I stole from a young apache indian," said Giganta, "Once sprinkled, it's absorbed into the skin and enables a permanent power of growing to giant size and then shrinking back to normal. Wonder Woman doesn't know that I have this new power. I once fobbed her off with some ridiculous story about being evolved from an ape, but all this time I've been planning. Just before my past confrontations with her, I only grew to 8 feet tall, to let her think that being 8 feet tall was my natural size. I didn't want to tip my full hand, since she was a founding member of the Justice League. Now that I'm with your team …"


	3. Secret Origins of the Sidekicks

"We'll call ourselves the Legion of Doom," said Luthor, "I'll set the time conveyor to take us back to a time just before young Wally West (whom I've observed on the time scope) had an accident that turned him into Kid Flash. I'll drop Cheetah and Brainiac off in Blue Valley, where they can make sure that Wally never has the chance to experience that accidental acquisition of super speed. That way he'll never join the Flash. Giganta and I will then go to a time before young Roy Harper met the Green Arrow, one of the less seen Super Friends who occasionally joins them on their adventures. We'll take care of him too, using the methods Cheetah and Giganta worked out."

One day, back in the past, Wally West was on his way home from Blue Valley High School, walking through a field, when he came across a green skinned robot and a woman dressed like a cheetah. The robot pointed a ray gun at Wally West, which shrank him to tiny size.

"And now, like a cat, I shall deal with a boy who is now like a mouse," said Cheetah.

She picked up Wally West and swallowed him whole, making it more than unlikely that he would ever become the super speedster sidekick Kid Flash.

Meanwhile, Luthor sent Giganta to where young Roy Harper was shooting arrows at a target in a field. Giganta grew to giant size, snatched Roy up and gobbled him down to her awaiting stomach as well.

As neither woman wanted to eat a girl, when they reached the time shortly before Wonder Woman saved Donna Troy from a burning building, Brainiac simply shrank Donna Troy out of sight, so that she might well have ended up living on an atom, and would thus never become Wonder Girl.

Brainiac shrank Charlie Parker before he could meet Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Cheetah swallowed the lad, so that he would never become Golden Eagle. Giganta snatched a young water breathing boy from out of the ocean, before he could be met by Aquaman and become his teenaged ally Aqualad and ate him too. Brainiac used gold Kryptonite on the baby Kara Zor-El, just before she reached earth, so that she would never have super powers on earth and never become Superman's teenage sidekick Supergirl.

The Teen Titans now never existed. Time became realigned. Without having ever acquired their teenage allies, Flash and Green Arrow, although regular Justice Leaguers, didn't share Batman's interest in being full time Super Friends, only occasional involvement. Wonder Woman saw the potential for training two fans named Wendy and Marvin, who had named their dog after her. Aquaman was another long term member who stayed with the Super Friends. Green Lantern, Hawkman and Hawkgirl and the Atom would help them on occasional cases.

When time was realigned, other teenagers from the planet Exxor (Zan and Jayna) were taken in by the Superfriends, after Wendy and Marvin had completed their training and moved on.

It was not until 1978, when Luthor had recruited a total of 13 members of his new Legion of Doom, that Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman decided to stick around as regulars. They were joined by the young apache indian who had since used his own growth power to become Apache Chief. Two other non-Justice Leaguers were accepted into the team, as they had considerable powers of their own: Samurai and Black Vulcan. Their origins had only come about as a buttefly effect from the time altering activities of Luthor's first allies which had prevented the Teen Titans and Supergirl from gaining their powers. Zan and Jayna's trip to earth to join the Superfriends were also butterfly effects which would otherwise never have happened.

Spoiler Warning: The next few paragraphs are recaps of CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFRIENDS 1978 episodes "Secret Origins of the Superfriends" and "History of Doom," and the 1973 Super Friends episode "Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C."

So the constant war was on between the Legion of Doom and the Superfriends. Keen to take his initial steps further and give the Legion an advantage, Luthor organized another series of attacks on the origins of Superfriends. This time, they went after Baby Kal-El, preventing him from becoming Superman, young amazon Diana, preventing her from becoming Wonder Woman, and young test pilot Hal Jordan, preventing him from becoming Green Lantern. (If they had not been back in the past in the time travelling Hall of Doom, some members of the Legion of Doom would have been retconned out of existence too, by means of negating the three Superfriends' existences. Bizarro's origin was derived from Superman's. Yet a time paradox of being in the past for a while had protected him from the realignment of history. Sinestro's clashes with Hal Jordan had first brought him to earth).

With the core team of Superfriends down to the eight least powerful members, Luthor flew the Hall of Doom over the Hall of Justice, kidnapped all 8 of them, and put 4 in the dungeon for a while, and used the other 4 to entertain the Legion of Doom by involuntarily fighting eachother.

Down in the Hall of Doom's dungeon, the Flash vibrated his way out at super speed, and then freed Black Vulcan, Batman and Robin. They took the opportunity to examine the Legion of Doom's computer files, and learned of the plan to avert the existences of Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, of whom they now had no memory. Using their own individual approaches, the four heroes went back in time and restored that much of the past, so that Superman and Wonder Woman and Green Lantern once again existed and helped free Apache Chief, Samurai, Aquaman and Hawkman from the Legion of Doom.

Shortly after that, they had a few more clashes with the Legion of Doom, the last of which involved a plan that would have backfired on Luthor's team too and left the whole planet of earth in desolation. But for the timely assistance of some new visitors from Kentron, things could have been very bleak.

Superman called a meeting of the Superfriends, and invited their one time ally Plastic Man to join them, as well as calling in Atom, Hawkgirl, Rima and Green Arrow.


	4. The Butterfly Reversals

"We've been fighting a losing battle to stop the Legion altogether and bring them to justice. The most we've done is eventually defeated each of their schemes after it's first taken us by surprise," said Superman, "We need to take the fight to them. Since Flash and the other three learned key facts about the Legion of Doom's tactics by looking at their computer files, I feel that we need to send a team to sneak aboard the Hall of Doom and study their computers in depth."

"I can vibrate in again," said Flash, "And Atom's small enough to slip in, especially if he shrinks even smaller for a while. And we know computers well in our secret identities as scientists."

"And Plastic Man can alter his shape and get in as well," said Batman, "It was useful when he helped us get that mouse out of the GEEC, when it was fouling up the computer's automation of every device on earth."

So Plastic Man, Atom and Flash secretly snuck into the Hall of Doom's basement, while the rest of the Superfriends kept the Legion of Doom distracted and busy by foiling their attempted robberies and other publicly criminal acts.

Later the three computer breakers met the rest of the Superfriends in the Hall of Justice.

"Zan and Jayna, Apache Chief, Samurai and Black Vulcan, can you patrol the city for us during our meeting?" asked Flash.

"We'll be glad to," said Zan, and they both left.

"Why did you send the Wondertwins and the others away?" asked Robin, "Don't they need to hear this too?"

"Because they _mustn't_ hear what we've got to tell you. They mustn't learn that their presence on this team was never meant to be. You won't believe what we discovered in Luthor's old files, dating back to before the Legion was formed, when he only had the Hall of Doom and Cheetah and Giganta and Brainiac," said Flash, "Fill them in, Atom."

"Their tampering with the origins of Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern wasn't the first time they'd messed up the past," said Atom, "According to records, a number of us had teenage sidekicks who no longer exist, because those first four villains disposed of them in ways which will hurt you a lot. The Wondertwins and the others' presence here is just time's way of compensating, to coin a phrase. But we can go back and change the past back to its correct history again, as we did before. When we do, the ones patrolling the city right now will never be Superfriends. Although they will still have super hero careers in their own countries or planet."

Flash and Atom filled the others in on the altered pasts of Kid Flash, Wondergirl, Speedy, Aqualad, Golden Eagle and Supergirl.

"Well it's a cinch that I can't help save this cousin I'm supposed to have," said Superman, "or the gold Kryptonite would permanently remove my powers."

"And I can't do anything with gold kryptonite, since it's coloured yellow," said Green Lantern."

"I'll go with Batman and Robin in the Batrocket, since it can pierce the time barrier, "I'll snare the kryptonite with my golden lasso, and destroy it with my strength, while Batman and Robin use their devices against Brainiac's," said Wonder Woman.

"I'll go to the point where Giganta ate Aqualad and stop her," said Superman.

"I'll time travel under my own power with Atom and save Roy Harper," said Flash, "But first I'll use my cosmic treadmill to drop Plastic Man and Green Arrow off at the point where Wonder Girl will need rescuing."

"Sure. I'll have a special arrow ready to shoot Brainiac's shrink gun out of his hand," said Green Arrow.

"And I'll wrap him up in my plastic arms before he can regain it," said Plastic Man.

"Hawkman, Hawkgirl and Rima and I can fix Kid Flash's and Golden Eagle's timelines, using my power ring for time travel," said Green Lantern, "I'll drop the Hawks off in Blue Valley, and then Rima and I can go for Golden Eagle. That way none of us will be involved in the rescues of our own sidekicks, although I don't have one. It will avoid any paradoxical meetings."

So they went back in time and restored the origins of the Teen Titans and Supergirl, with the result that one factor differed from either of the previous two timelines. This time, instead of being a part time member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, by periodically flying into the 30th Century, Supergirl remained in the present all the time as a member of the Teen Titans. Wendy, Marvin, Wonderdog, Zan, Jayna, Gleek, Black Vulcan, Apache Chief and Samurai never joined the Superfriends. The team was now a composite of the Justice League of America and the Teen Titans, still retaining its Gotham based Hall of Justice as a meeting place.

"But can't Luthor just take his Legion back in time and start wiping out our pasts all over again?" asked Robin.

"Not easily," said Batman, "Members of the Legion of Doom can't reappear in the past in the same places and times which they've already visited. They mustn't meet themselves in the past. That's why we were meticulous about avoiding any run-ins with our own past selves, by not going to the rescue of our own sidekicks but rather each others'."

"It won't help them to try anyway," said Atom, "Flash is familiar with time travel technology because of his cosmic treadmill, and I've used professor Hyatt's time pool many times. We rigged the Hall of Doom's time conveyor to self destruct and start a chain reaction that will destroy the whole building if they try to use the time conveyor again. I programmed the computer to send them an audible warning to evacuate with a five minute countdown. After that, Bizarro and Sinestro might otherwise be the only ones to survive their not heeding the warning."

A few other reverse butterfly effects from restoring the timeline to normal were: that a brand new composite super hero named Firestorm would join the Superfriends in 1979 instead of 1984. El Dorado would not join in 1982, and Victor Stone would never have the accident which left him in a Cyborg body, and would thus never join the renamed Super Powers Team in 1985.


End file.
